Two young girls await the return of their loved ones as the sun sets Saturday afternoon at Fort Stewart’s Cottrell Field. Nearly 300 soldiers with the 1st Battalion, 64th Armor Regiment of the 3rd Infantry Division’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team returned home after a 9-month deployment to Afghanistan.

LEFT: Capt. Jared Graham gets a hug from Conner, 3, and Connie as he still holds tightly to his company colors Saturday evening at Fort Stewart’s Cottrell Field. RIGHT: Wounded soldiers await the arrival of their comrades Saturday.

LEFT: Soldiers with the 1st Battalion, 64th Armor Regiment of the 3rd Infantry Division’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team march across Cottrell Field shortly after arriving at Fort Stewart on Saturday evening. RIGHT: Soldiers are greeted by loved ones after returning home from a 9-month deployment to Afghanistan on Saturday evening.

Army specialists Eric Clark and Gregory Hedrick beamed proudly as they watched nearly 300 of their uniformed comrades march across Fort Stewart’s parade grounds Saturday night.

After a brief ceremony, they exchanged hugs and handshakes, and for the first time in months, they felt like a part of the family of soldiers with whom they’d left Fort Stewart in March en route to southern Afghanistan.

But the realities of combat — for Clark, stepping on an improvised explosive device, and for Hedrick, being struck by a rocket-propelled grenade — ended their tours early, sending them back to the United States and to the hospitals where they’d lose limbs and begin their struggles for some sort of normalcy.

In all, 16 of the warriors severely wounded during the deployment gathered at Cotrell Field to greet their battalion-mates with the 1st Battalion, 64th Armor Regiment of the 3rd Infantry Division’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team.

For the 20-year-old Clark, who was on his first combat tour since joining the Army, his comrades’ return brought him a calmness he hadn’t felt since leaving them in September.

“It feels great right now,” he said. “I’m not gonna lie, I’ve been worrying about these guys ever since I left. To see them on the (parade grounds), safe. I no longer have to worry about them.

“Yeah, I’d prefer to be out there on the field with them, but just to be able to make it here tonight is perfectly fine with me. It’s just good to see them back.”

Ever since he was struck by the RPG during a firefight, Hedrick had strived to be well enough to return to Fort Stewart to see his unit return.

“It’s been a journey. There’ve been rough patches. I’ve been down, but this is good,” said the 27-year-old soldier who will be medically retired after serving three combat deployments.

“This is good for me. It felt so good to get back here, and, you know, seeing these guys — I’m happy.”

That was the general feeling across the installation Saturday night, where nearly 1,000 family members greeted the last group of the battalion’s soldiers to return from the nine-month deployment.

Among the mass of multi-cam uniform-clad soldiers and ecstatic family members, Chanesse Mitchell-Brown struggled to find her husband.

But after a few minutes, her 10-year-old son, Tyjae, marched out of the cluster with his father in tow.

Sgt. Reginald Brown threw his arms around his wife and three of their four children as a tear ran down Mitchell-Brown’s cheek.

A moment later, she introduced the soldier to his 3-month-old daughter, Raelynn, for the first time.

“It’s been a long time coming,” said the 31-year-old soldier. “It’s been very tough to wait for this moment. It feels good; I’ve been waiting for this so long.”

Although the deployment was shorter than his two previous tours, Brown said it didn’t feel any different.

For his wife, the pregnancy made his absence even more difficult.

“I basically had to do this whole pregnancy by myself,” she said. “I didn’t have any family help and I’ve got three other kids, but we’ve made it. Him being home is going to be a huge help.”

The family wasn’t sure what they’d do during Brown’s post-deployment leave, but Tyjae had some suggestions.

“I want to do some fun stuff,” the 10-year-old said. “I’m tired of tea parties and doing girly stuff; we’re going to go snowboarding and fishing, and we’re going to eat sushi. That’s what me and dad are going to do.”